Rumi and Kabir Bowling
Last year, as I understand it, Rumi was the best selling poet in the United States -- more than 800 years after he was alive. Kabir, too, is still being widely read -- as is Hafiz, Gibran, and a host of other ecstatic poets from times gone by. Many people assume these guys must have been praying, meditating, or fasting all day long. I don't think so. This next poem is an homage to Rumi and Kabir -- my fantasy of how the two of them might have spent an evening, in a bowling alley, knocking back some brewskis, if they were still with us today. PS: For maximum value, read this poem aloud, with some drama in your voice.
RUMI AND KABIR BOWLING
I have been to the place where Rumi and Kabir are... bowling all night long. They are rolling perfectly round balls down a perfectly polished alley, laughing at the sound of the pins falling down, again and again and again.
Every time they bowl a strike even when they miss which is often, I must say, their aim wandering in fabulously random ways around this grand interior space.
Rumi orders a shot of Red Eye, Kabir, a Bud Lite, their clinking of glasses some kind of esoteric temple bell ritual neither of them understand.
They keep drinking and laughing and drinking again, knocking back the elixir of their late night bowling life and muttering under their barely moving breath about the strangers outside returning home from yet another too long night shift.
Rumi opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Kabir, long beard flecked with foam, orders a second round and then a third as if the world was on fire.
Suddenly, Rumi looks over his left shoulder. More pins fall, this time leaving a perfect 7-10 split. Kabir, sweet Kabir, knowing he never has to write another poem to prove himself whole, leaps from his chair and hurls himself down the perfectly polished alley, arms outstretched, moving at the speed of lite... beer.
Bang!
Both pins fall, like cedars in Lebanon... like Adam from Grace... like trees in a forest with no one near enough to hear whether anything had actually happened or not. No one, that is, except Red Eye Rumi now swiveling like a madman in his chair and pointing to the door.
A small man, in a starched white uniform, enters, many keys hanging from his belt.
"HEY! You two! What are you doing here? This place is closed!"
Rumi just smiles, tilts his head back and speaks into his empty glass now megaphone for the moment.
"I beg to differ, my good man. This place is not closed. It is open! If it were closed, we would not be here. Open it is, I say! Wide open! Open like the Red Sea, like a window on a summer night, like the eyes of a young man upon seeing the most beautiful woman in the world walk across the room, her body the perfect mix of spirit and flesh. Open, I say... like a book, like the sky, like the heart of one not yet disappointed in the ways of human love. Go about your business, friend, and leave us here, two happy hieroglyphs of love."
"We have a perfect game on Lane 23," intones a disembodied voice over the PA system "A perfect game!"
Rumi and Kabir pull over another chair, pour another drink and beckon to the man in the starched white uniform, many keys dangling from his belt.
"Good friend, come closer, come drink with us. Come now! The night is still young."
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